‘It’s OK.’ I go to ask him what he did mean by it, but he gets in first.

‘Does it still hurt, with your mum? I mean, I know that it must do. What I’m trying, and failing, to say is does it get easier?’

‘I didn’t think it would but over time it does. That doesn’t mean I don’t miss her any less. I’m just learning to live with the grief and with the knowledge that it comes and goes at various points in my life.

‘But it’s been hard lately because my dad’s got this new …’ I struggle to get the word out ‘… girlfriend. Julie. She’s lovely and I’ve wanted him to find someone he really likes for so long, but now that he has I’m finding it difficult. It’s like watching how he was with Mum, but it’s someone else. I sound ridiculous.’

Joel reaches over and wipes away a tear from my cheek that I didn’t know had fallen.

‘It doesn’t sound ridiculous at all. From the sounds of it, you and your dad have been through a lot over the years; it’s bound to be hard letting someone else into that relationship.’

I nod and close my eyes. I’m relieved to hear that what I am feeling is natural.

‘Is this the stuff that you don’t talk about with Miles? Because you should. You shouldn’t be bottling all this up.’

‘In all honesty, I don’t know why I keep things from him. He doesn’t even know the details around how Mum died and he only recently found out about Dad being an alcoholic, and not because I told him.’ I try and blink away the rest of the tears before they can fall. ‘Didn’t things used to be so much simpler when we were younger?’

‘I don’t know, did they? I don’t remember it being that easy then either.’

I want to ask him what happened between us at Hartland’s, why things suddenly changed between us, but I still can’t do it.

The sun is almost up now and it’s already starting to get warmer.

‘This is better than I remember it being,’ I say instead, as the sky explodes into colour.

‘Worth getting up at stupid o’clock for?’

‘I guess so.’

We sit in silence for a minute or so taking in the scene in front of us. I need to take the time to appreciate things like this more.

‘I used to think thirty-five was the age when you become a proper grown-up,’ I say, raking my hands in the sand again. ‘Where you have everything sorted and you are exactly where you are supposed to be in life.’